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Challenge...fastest iOS synth
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While playing around in all my iOS synth i experienced a „flaw“ in lot of them.
I like to create some really fast and driving beats/bass lines with arps which are defined and snappy. F.e. things you hear in psy trance.
For some reason most synths really loose it when i go higher than 1/16 at 120bpm.
Are the envelopes to slow, latency between apps (i feel f.e. more latency on iOS compared to mac with the same buffer size) or something else?
So far Zeeon seems the best but it also has trouble with faster than 1/16 at 120bpm 1/16T is the limit for it but i would say 1/16 is already the fastest to not loose really definition and punch.
So what is your fastest synth?
Comments
O.k. Wavemapper seems the fastest now so far and beats Zeeon here. (beware i just can test iPhone synths).
This is a similar discussion on muff wiggler regarding analogue synth envelopes: https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=65964&sid=0f628fc3793b76de64c7bceabfbd80ff
I suppose we should get the oscilloscopes out and measure the iOS equiv of everything they mention.
Nah´i´m not a friend of measure everything because i hear what i hear and digital synths might better in this case but i like to combine analog meat and a bit dirt with still as fast and defined sound as possible.
I mean i also love to just run an arp into 1/128 for creating kind of fake close to audio rate texture with aliasing
I know that a few virtual analog synths do very well here on desktop f.e. Dagger and Repro. Especially a really fast but still smooth closing decay on filter cutoff seems to be the right thing for me. Dagger is king here so i vote for it on iOS again.
It´s maybe even the synth with biggest balls without FX for certain sounds i ever used. It´s limited but it has a sweet spot where it really kills everything else. That is a thing i like with combining several "small" synths to get the best out of 2-3 different synths and layer it into something which breaks a wall
snappy is defined by your envelopes & mode (e.g. retriggering of envelopes & number of poly voices).
I still use Sunrizer as the best for fast sequences (1000 bpm).
I know but it seems many iOS synths can´t handle that. I think f.e. the Virus might be one of the king here in general.
I just have an iPhone so i will see if the iPhone version can please me. Thank´s for the suggestion.
I guess that also the shape of the curves makes a big amount of the punchy feel here.
Synths with customizable envelopes are maybe a lot better here.
That reminds me that the Virsyn synths might be excellent here. Sadly on iPhone i only have the Addictive Micro.
I think the problem is more IOS accuracy in timing (it can throw off any fast syncopated rhythm)- hardware synths don't have all the phone or gfx to worry about so are super fast. I tend to use it in short bursts for fx only though...
Groove Rider GR-16 is pretty good at that stuff.
Set the time base to 32 or 32-Triplet and tempo goes all the way up to 999.0BPM
But it works fine with some desktop synths on my mac. So shoudn´t it work in theory.
And you are right. Sunrizer(XS) is the fastest so far. Reminds me also how in your face this "old" iOS synth can sound. Indeed beside Alchemy the only synth i made whole tracks with as only synth sound source.
But again no iPhone version of the new one and i guess Sunrizer 2 will be iPad only as well.
And it also happens as well with 1/16 at 120bpm that a lot of these snappy punchy feeling goes away.
Didn't spent too much time comparing the two but the original Minimoog has real snappy envelopes so I imagine the new iOS app does as well.
@Cib: Many iOS synths have a faulty MIDI implementation: they listen for incoming MIDI messages and then process them as they arrive. This is not how it is supposed to be done. Instead, they should render their audio stream in advance as soon as the MIDI data and corresponding timing is made available by the source app (unfortunately, many source apps also do this wrong and send MIDI data in realtime instead of queueing them using the correct APIs).
For example, Korg Gadget's MIDI input implementation is correct, timing with a well-implemented source app is rock-solid. On the other hand, Poison-202 timing is extremely inaccurate, I assume it listens for MIDI messages in realtime.
EDIT: Re-read your post and it seems to be about envelope "tightness", which is a different beast altogether (depends on how often you apply envelopes / LFOs... per sample frame or per buffer). Anyway, I'll leave this post here just in case other iOS developers stumble over it as a reminder
They’re saying the roland SH and System series had fast attacks, and I would agree regarding my SH-09. The Arp 2600 ADSR is known for fast attacks too and I think my Arp 2600 can be quite percussive too (must find the time to resume fixing it and put the new veroboard VCA into it).
They say the Oberheim envs are slow, but my (three) Oberheim Matrix 1000s have digitally generated envelopes, so really they should be not only fast, but effectively they could start at the top, instead of climbing to the top of the voltage excursion, if the attack is set to zero duration.
In general, any analogue envelope generator is quiescent at zero volts by default and only generates an envelope voltage excursion away from zero upon gating or triggering. This typically involves charging a buffered capacitor through a diode path one way, and then discharging it through a diode path the other way, with attack and decay pots controlling the charge rate. Thus, it is nearly impossible to have a true zero-time attack in analogue (unless you had a special envelope generator for those sort of envelopes, which starts at the top and upon gating, decays to zero like a ramp generator).
In the digital realm, unless you’re fastidious about emulating everything about the analogue circuitry, you stand a chance of making your envelopes snappier than analogue by letting there actually be an attack time of 0.
Thank´s guys. A lot interesting things here.
Interesting, thx. Could that also be the case where i use the synth included arp? I mean how works an arp included in a synth. Does it also get triggered just by midi like an external arp would do?
It is very snappy. More than Model 15 but if i trigger notes very fast it also seems to loose a lot punch and definition.
Polyphonic distortion/saturation is my friend.
I might try to set the envelopes tighter and see if i can get it better.
I wish i could use your app on iPhone
Thank´s for the info. I tried it with the ArpOdyssei and it´s really not bad here either (beside that it also has the fattest unison from all iOS synths so far).
I mean that is the reason we have so many different synths. All have pro and contra and i just love it more and more to explore all this in depth. Not good for my budget......
A good implementation would also render the audio for the next few hundred milliseconds in advance as soon as the arp "knows" what the notes will look like, yes.
I also struggled with producing tight dance / psy trance with iOS until recently, when devices got so fast that it often doesn't matter anymore even with naive MIDI implementations. For example, with my original iPad Mini or iPhone 4, it was impossible to make music for me with anything except NanoStudio, because that was the only fully integrated app that had no timing problems. But be careful: many people do not have such accurate "timers" in their heads and do not even realize that this problem exists, so don't be surprised if people look strange at you
I always those fast trance rhythms were produced by using a square shaped Trance Gate on pad type sounds, not sequenced in a sequencer per se, but in the rhythmic gate pattern. The gate would be the envelope in this case, the envelope of the pad type sound would be more of a dynamics control.
I got this idea using FL Studio years ago. They had a synth with a built in TranceGate.
@CracklePot yes, but with a correct MIDI implementation, you could use notes as well, or say, CC 7 for "gating" a pad (the demo song included with Xequence does that on the "Dist" instrument... with 32th notes at 136 BPM... no problems with Gadget
)
So cool. I am going to be digging into this baby today for the first time. I bought it last night, but was too tired and decided a fresh start today would be better. I want to catch up before you add too much more.
I was interested in Infected Mushroom's Gatekeeper software (speaking psy trance).
I had an idea to repurpose Native Instrument's Form sampler into an effect in order to achieve similar results. Some Reaktor heads have given me some instructions on how to reroute the back end but I have put it off for a week or two. If anyone owns Form and would like to see how, let me know.
Back to iOS: Maybe we could all plead with Polyverse for them to port the AU over to iOS, like Audio Damage has done with their plugins....
But then I just had another thought. What about Audulus 3? It is in development to become an AUv3 and only presently works through Inter-App audio, but it is a complex building environment similar to Reaktor. I will post the topic on their forum (if only for my own benefit) and see if we can build it -- if it doesn't already exist in some guise...
I also want to add -- and someone please correct me if I am wrong here -- that KQDixie is a prime candidate for fast envelopes. I use it with a Keith McMillen BopPad where you need percussion grade speed for rolls and I must say the KM BopPad and KQDixie are a beautiful pair.
Finally, FAC Transient is a candidate for a GUI upgrade. What if it had Phosphorus 2's ADSR curve type manipulation built into the faceplate instead of some foggy, though useful, presets...
I heard that some even prefer to use sampled bass for psy to get a really tight sound. But i guess with some modern synths it works good.
Of course all the things together are important. If you want that squelchy and juicy bass with punch you need fast envelopes, as well as the right shape of the envelopes, great resonance on filter and of course it might be better if your synth updates everything, including the envelopes, at audio rate. Even for slow bass lines it can make a huge different. I prefer my bass a bit saturated as well to add a few harmonic content and that is another thing to handle without it just sounding totally distorted or muddy.
An example of a slow but what i (maybe it´s just my flavor) call a juicy, meaty and beautiful bodied bass is this f.e.
This synth f.e. can do also very fast things without loosing meat and balls but it also reach a point where other synths are "faster" but not nearly as good in the slower tempo.
So, fast might not always be the speed of arps and modulation etc. it can handle it might also how it handles all of its parts together like resonance, FX, envelopes.
I´m just a fan of dirty and juicy sounds but i need to hear still great definition.
Hard to explain so here an example (it´s a virtual modular synth which i used without extern FX):
I remember setting this up with a hardware dbx noise gate triggered by a 909 rim shot back in the day. Is there a method for this on iOS?
AUFX Push has side chaining and a gate section, but I would need to investigate further to verify that it could be configured to do it. If you have AUFX Push, you could try it out. But ask around, or ask the dev if it is possible before you buy it.
Do you have Audulus 3 app?
Yes also on mac but i don´t go well with the workflow.
Yeah, understood, understood. Well I had some fun tonight with this topic anyway, so thanks for that. I am not sure if what I am doing has anything to do with what you are looking for but someone on the Audulus Forum built something pretty cool. I am totally new to Audulus so this is a big learning curve, but I did run a gate effect similar to what I saw on the Gatekeeper plugin above. I also wanted a tight gate. I am just working out the details of it on the Audulus forum. Here is the thread:
http://forum.audulus.com/discussion/15699/has-this-gating-effect-been-achieved-in-audulus#Item_6
Dang! Audulus 3 looks insane! My next big purchase, for sure.
I always felt like the envelopes on my Matrix-6 were 'mushy'.